Environment Report 2015

ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2015

An average of 63,500 tonnes of total atmospheric emissions were produced per asset on the UKCS in 2014. This is approximately 37 per cent lower than the average of 101,500 tonnes in 2013.

When divided into asset type, the average total atmospheric emissions for fixed installations is 75,400 tonnes and 23,400 tonnes for mobile installations (considerably lower than the 2013 mobile installations’ average of 132,500 tonnes). This decrease in average emissions from mobile installations is because fewer atmospheric emissions were reported from fewer installations. There were 42 mobile installations reporting emissions to EEMS in 2014, compared to 53 in 2013. Two of the ten largest mobile contributors of atmospheric emissions in 2013 did not report to EEMS (and were therefore not in use) last year, and four reported atmospheric emissions of less than half the amount. This reduction correlates to a decrease in the number of wells (including sidetracks) drilled between 2013 (164 wells) and 2014 (158) 44 . This benchmarking allows comparison of different operators, but cannot take into account the age, size and number of installations each operator has. An operator will, however, be able to compare the means of these benchmarked variables to their internal data.

Figure 24: Total Atmospheric Emissions per Operator by Hydrocarbon Type in 2014

3

45

Mobile

40

Condensate

2.5

Gas

35

Oil

30

2

2014 Mean per UKCS Asset

25

2013 Mean per UKCS Asset

1.5

Total Well Stream Fluids

20

15

1

10

0.5

5

Total Well Stream Fluids (Million Tonnes)

Total Atmospheric Emissions (Million Tonnes)

0

0

A C E G I

K M O Q S U W Y AA AC AE AG AI AK

Source: EEMS June 2015

44 Oil & Gas UK’s Activity Survey 2015 is available to download at www.oilandgasuk.co.uk/activitysurvey

page 38